Lost and Afraid
Isaiah 43:1-7
June 18, 2006
Today’s sermon is the third in a series on LOST. Being lost is an experience of having our world torn apart. Being lost is having the familiar things that get us through the day disappear. Being lost is not knowing where to turn or who to turn to. Being lost is having familiar resources suddenly disappear. We’ve talked about being lost and lonely, and about being lost and confused. Today we want to talk about being lost and afraid.
I guess that we are all afraid of something or other. What are you afraid of – snakes, bugs, the dark, heights? Go to www.phobialist.com and you can find all sorts of phobias. I am amazed at the number of things people are afraid of. Have you ever heard of these phobias?
• Dentaphobia fear of dentists
• Automatonaphobia fear of ventriloquist’s dummies
• Ecclesiophobia fear of the church
• Microphobia fear of small things
• Octophobia fear of the number 8
• Papaphobia fear of the pope
• Photophobia fear of light
• Tachaphobia fear of speed
• Zoophobia fear of animals
Wouldn’t you like to have a day now and then when you could go about your activities without fear of any kind? Wouldn’t you like to have a day when you could, for instance, go for a walk in the sun without sunscreen? Wouldn’t you like to take a trip out of town without getting a hotel reservation? Wouldn’t you like to choose the deviled egg instead of the cauliflower with the low-fat yogurt dip? Wouldn’t you like to buy that new hair dryer without first reading Consumer Reports? If you could live a day without fear, what would you do that would be wild and crazy?
We all have our own fears. For example, I’m afraid that people will find out that the only A I got in seminary was in my course on “The Discipline.” I am afraid of that because I don’t want people to identify me with all those church geeks who like that kind of stuff. Sometimes our fears are trivial and goofy. Other times, they are not.
My uncle Ora was a Michigan farm kid back in February, 1942, when he received a letter from Uncle Sam telling him that he was needed in the fight against world-wide tyranny. So, off he went to army bases far and wide. Kentucky, Arkansas, California. Then it was on to the Pacific Theater of Operations and places he had never heard of before: Guam, Saipan, Tinian.
A few years ago, one of his sons thought that his experiences should not be lost to time. Uncle Ora was getting well into his eighties and he had never really told anyone about his war time service. We knew that he had been in some terrific fighting, but really didn’t know any details. So, with my cousin’s prompting, he recorded a three CD recollection of his part of the war.
As I listened to it, I realized that he was very reluctant to talk about those years. He had to be prodded by his son to tell the stories. And even then, we all knew that he was not telling the worst of it.
He was driving a tracked landing craft toward the beaches of Saipan when enemy fire hit the vehicle, sinking it and throwing everyone on board into the ocean. Many of those soldiers were killed. Miraculously, Uncle Ora was not injured. He found himself, however, alone and adrift. He was in the water for two days. During those two days, he heard the constant roar of the big guns and the sounds of the raging battle. He was drifting closer and closer to a Japanese held island about which they had been warned. Almost at the last minute, he was picked up by a Navy ship. I can’t imagine the fear he felt. I can’t imagine what that sort of fear is like. Few of us can, except those who have similar life-threatening experiences.
This isn’t quite the same thing, but is another story of conquering your fear. Four years ago when Toni was on the pastoral staff of Trinity UMC in Elkhart, they were preaching a series on facing your fears. As the staff sat around and brainstormed how they might make that message come alive, someone asked everybody else to list their greatest fears. They then decided that, as a staff, they would confront the greatest fear among them.
Finally it was decided that the greatest fear among the staff members was the fear of heights and the fear of falling. So they decided that the whole staff would go skydiving to prove to themselves that they could conquer their fears.
On a Saturday afternoon shortly after that decision, the two pastors, the Youth Pastor, the Director of Worship Arts, and the lead pastor’s youngest son went to the Goshen airport for several hours of training. A week later, they went back to take their jump. I was invited to go, but fibbed to them. I said that I wasn’t afraid of heights, so there was no use for me to spend the money to take the lessons! I’m not sure they believed me.
They climbed into the airplane, took off, circled the airport until they were at four thousand feet, and jumped. Thankfully, everyone made it to the ground safely – except Toni who dislocated her left ankle upon landing. But they faced their fear.
The ancient Israelites knew fear. In fact, the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are filled with nothing but peril, distress, sin, judgment, and fear. The nation had been conquered by the great power to the east, Babylon. The children of Israel, the sons and daughters of Abraham’s promise, the one’s chosen by God for a special mission in the world had been captured and force-marched into captivity far away from home.
Many had lost loved-ones in the savage conquest. Most didn’t know if they would ever see their homeland again. All felt abandoned and cut off from God. They were adrift; prisoners in a foreign land.
I found an article written way back in 1947, in which the author describes the exiles in this manner (Paul F. Barackman. Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. January, 1947). Remember, this was written just a couple of years following the holocaust. This scholar writes about the Israelite exile like this.
Rarely has history seen more concentrated misery than was to be found among these captives…Mothers had been separated from their children, and husbands from their wives. When they sat down to think of the past, they must often have shuddered at the memory of the terrible siege, of the loved ones dead on the field of battle, of the children who perished miserably on the march to Babylon, and of the homes forever destroyed.
This was not an abstract exercise for the Israelites. These were people who were chosen by God, led through the wilderness, and established as a great nation. Now they were conquered, beaten, and exiled. Did that mean that the Babylonian gods were stronger than the Israelite God? They had to know.
As I said, the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are depressing. But at chapter 40, things change. The prophecy begins to address the exiles with words of hope, with words of encouragement, with words of God. What a difficult job that was at this time in history. This same article says, “To address exiles about God is to call out over the graveyard where hope is buried.”
But to that graveyard of hope, Isaiah speaks in chapter 40 when he says, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God…Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem…she has served her sentence…her sin is taken care of…forgiven.” And then in chapter 43, he says, “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine.”
Isaiah was telling the people that their relationship with God had survived the toughest of times. There was no reason to be afraid any longer because God had recovered the people that were once lost. With God, hope is never buried.
I believe that some of the greatest words spoken in our century were those spoken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when, at his first inaugural address, he said,
“I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency, I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
I believe that the greatest threat we face from our fear is becoming paralyzed in the face of it. I remember hearing a professor at Goshen College say that our fear is a result of our lack of faith in the resurrection. You see, if we truly believe in the resurrection, then we know that we cannot really be harmed. There is nothing that can happen to us that can ultimately keep us from God.
If we let it, fear will take away our faith, strip of our courage, and rob us of our confidence. Fear will keep us tied to our seats when the situation demands action. Fear keeps us cowed in a corner, afraid to lift our heads. Fear will make us timid. Fear will convince us that we don’t have resources to survive and prosper.
FDR told the nation back in 1933 that he was speaking the truth. An even greater truth was that spoken by God and recorded by the prophet Isaiah. God said, “When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.” This is the God who came to us as “Immanuel, God-with-us.” God is with us - right here, right now. “So don’t be afraid,” he says in 43:5.
On the video, did you notice how scared Andrew was? He was the last one to go and it was all the instructor could do to get him out the door. But the important thing about him…and about the rest of the folks there…is not how scared they were, but how they conquered their fear. They trusted in their instructor, in their parachutes, in their training…and finally in God to get them down safely.
We belong to God. We know that because that is what is recorded there in Isaiah’s prophecy. God has created us, personally formed and made each one of us. There is nothing in the world that can separate us from God’s love.
Yes, tough times may come. Threats may assail us. The future may look bleak. But we are never completely lost because we are never alone. We are never lost because we have learned that there is really nothing to fear.
John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” Christian can be courageous and unafraid because we go forth with God who takes away our fear.
